Time Bombs and Falling Taxis
by Ambiguousalamony
Summary: Eliot, Hardison, and Parker are finding evidence when Eliot discovers a bomb. They make a run for the exit, but not everyone makes it out. Will the team Hitter make it through? Maybe HardisonxParker. Maybe. All swear words blanked out except the one in Eliot's favorite phrase.
1. Ninja Bomb

-12:34, an unprecedentedly ungodly hour, at an abandoned train station-

"Uh, Hardison . . . " Eliot didn't phrase it as a question. He made it sound like a weak warning.

Eliot doesn't do weak.

"Wha-wha-what's wrong?" Alec was on the alert, suddenly wishing he had a gun on him. And that he could shoot it.

"Bomb."

Harison's eyes bugged out for two reasons:

1) Eliot Spencer had just discovered a device made specifically for the detonation of human beings and 2) Despite, the slight shake in his voice, the hitter was being waaay too nonchalant about it.

Hardison squints, trying to find his partner in the blackness. Or at least his flashlight. He gulps. "What kind is it?"

"The kind that goes 'boom' and splatters our scorched guts across the floor, what other kind is there?!"

Okay, Mr. Calm, Cool, and Can Kill You In More Ways Than You Ever Imagined. No need to get touchy. Even though they were about to become part of the scenery.

"Where's it at?"

. . .

"Ceiling."

. . .

"Lemme guess, it's got a timer?" Alec hardly made it sound like a question.  
"Yep."  
A timebomb. On the freakin' ceiling. About to blow up the only place they could get damning evidence for their current job.

**That's** the only thing on God's green earth that could make Eliot go from slightly annoyed (his norm) to almost panicking in .5 seconds.

. . .

Why couldn't things go right, completely right, just this once?

"Okay, okay, okay . . . don't panic . . ." alright, so the Hacker's talking more to himself than to Eliot, but nevermind. "How much time is left on it?"

"Enough for us to book it out of here in one piece."

But without the evidence.

"Er, Eliot . . . um, sir. . .?"

The man growls into the com unit.

"Have you ever survived being under a complete collapse of a train station and the ground level of New York City before?" Hardison asks jokingly, taking com out before Eliot's yelling has a chance to deafen him.

_"I guess I'm about to, huh?"_

Hardison does a double take, and then some screaming of his own.

"Wait, WHAT?! Are you crazy, dude?! Uh-uh. No way. I am NOT letting you search down here alone, then have you squashed by a fallin' taxi. No. Way. Parker would kill me. And you do NOT want to be on Parker's Death List. That girl is SCARY, man . . ."

_"Aaaw, thanks Hardison!"_

"PARKER?!" _"PARKER?!"_

_"I thought someone blew our coms out the second we stumbled down here? Hardison, is there something you didn't tell me . . ."_

"Hold it, HOLD IT. Just stop right there. The black dude had nothing, are you hearing me bro? NOTHING to do with it. Parker must have gotten out of the . . . jammer's range . . ."

_". . . And to do that she has to be down here with us . . ." _Eliot took this short oppertunity to let out a long string of curse words, that were NOT in various languages. He eventually got quite creative, too.

"Yikes . . ."

_"Yew bet yer &amp;#%, yikes. Hardison, I want ya to find Parker and git her the *^ ( outta here!" _

"Eliot, I ain't leaving you down he-YYYYAAAAAAAAAA!"

_"HARDISON! HARDISON, TALK TO ME. WHAT'S HAPPENING?!"_

The hacker was suddenly at a loss.

"Um, thanks for the worry Eliot . . . but, uh . . . Parker sorta jumped me . . . and I sorta paniced . . ."

_"Almost causing me to sorta have freaking __heart__attack__! DAMMIT HARDISON!"_

"Oops . . ."

_"Um, boys, before this place comes tumbing down around our ears, I have something to tell you."_

"WHAT?!" _"WHAT?"_

_"I've got the papers."_

"Oh." _"Oh."_

. . .

. . . .

. . . . . . .

"Doesn't that mean we should get the !*{: outta here?"

And they did.

Just not quite fast enough.

**_Boom_**

It was low and muffled by the time they heard it, but still forboding. Parker was topside in a blink, Hardison right on her heels. But Eliot was having . . . dificulties.

It seems he forgot about being stabbed earlier, didn't mention it to anybody, and didn't even grunt when he got it. Well, now blood loss was getting to him . . . and, well, Spencer just didn't have the energy to make it out of the station before it collapsed.

* * *

The light at the end of the tunnel just dissepeared right before his eyes. He was surrounded by rumbling, falling rocks, and Hardison's screams in his ear. It was kind of surreal, and, almost confusing.

The boulder slamming into his leg was not.

Hardison's girl-screams weren't doing much for his newfound headache either.


	2. Rescue Squad

**In case, it wasn't clear before, if they're talking in italics, that means the team's using their coms. **

**. . .**

_"Nate? Listen . . . we've kinda got a problem here . . . Ya know how we were supposed to get the dirt on that arms dealer . . .?"_

_"Hardison, what did you mess up this time?"_

_"Wha . . . How did you? Wait, why do you think it's MY fault?! Excuse me if Eliot was just too slow ta get out of a collapsing tunnel! This better not be because I'm blac-"_

Sophie cuts in before Alec can get up a good head of steam _"What do you mean, a tunnel collapsed on top of Eliot?!"_

Hardison fills them on the details somewhat sheepishly. No matter what he says, he'll always feel like it was his fault when something goes wrong. But it could just be the martyr complex talking.

" . . . And, to top it off, me and Parker were pushed off to the side like local riffraff, or somethin', soon as the med team showed up. Too many people with badges are hanging around, Nate. They aren't going to leave until Eliot stops groaning, they find a body, or they get him out in one piece and arrest him!"

Nate signs inside the van, temporarily serving as home base. Fittingly, it starts to rain buckets.*

As usual, there are a few options in this situation:

a) Leaving Eliot, currently fake ID-less, to the Feds, and picking him up later with some half-baked excuse. Most likely something about Spencer being a meth addict. That would go over just beautifully.

a ending two) Still leaving Eliot to the Feds and just nabbing Eliot once he's patched up and imprisoned.

b) Take care of their own, and not leave their best (and only) hitter to a bunch of bumbling oafs that know nothing about cave-ins, let alone train station-ins.

"Okay people, let's go steal ourselves a hitter."

* * *

-1:52, Back with Eliot

Spencer grudgingly wakes up, immediately wishing he hadn't. Voices are at the end of the tunnel, tantalizing close, but blocked by wreckage. Hey, that's never stopped him before. No, wait, he can't seem to get up . . .

Oh, right, the boulder semi-permanently attacked to his left leg.

. . . Which hurts like . . . something he really shouldn't talk about. No worse than that time in Africa. Or Switzerland. Or France. Or quite a few other things. But that doesn't mean it doesn't hurt like, again, something he shouldn't talk about.

"!"

(What he suspects) is the rescue team, moves a rock, which moves another rock, which jostles the one pinning his leg.

";:-!.\\*'?!/-," Eliot suddenly decides this is much, much worse than Africa, placing this particular adventure in excruciating pain up there with Iceland and an American comic con gone wrong. Never, ever mock geeks about the super heroes they're parading around as. Even if they ARE wearing their underwear over their pants.

Vision flashing white, the hitter decides to take a little nap, hoping the team can break him out.

. . .

Karkat, if you're reading this, it's JUST AN EXPRESSION. Let it be.*

**Yes, I'm a complete jerk. Short chapter and months behind update. Whoops. **


End file.
